Don't believe I have seen anyone post this, but the website is incredible.
Knight Commission Launches New College Sports Financial Database
Washington, DC – Attempting to inject financial transparency into college sports, the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics has unveiled a new database detailing athletics revenues, expenses and debt at more than 220 public NCAA Division I colleges and universities. The information, which dates to 2005, also includes institution-wide academic spending. The free, open-access College Athletics Financial Information (CAFI) Database, available at the link below, allows users to crunch numbers in numerous ways, and also create their own "peer groups" to analyze the data.
http://cafidatabase.knightcommission.org/
Source: Potomac Tech Wire
Comments
Could someone not on mobile walk us through Tech's financial information.
The graphs would be the most helpful but I imagine it's also difficult on mobile.
2017 data below.
Total Expenses: $90.72M
Coaches Comp: $19.29M (21%)
Facilities and Equipment: $21.89M (24%)
Support and Admin Comp w/ Severance: $13.76M (15%)
Athletic Student Aid: $13.43M (15%)
Other Expenses: $8.17M (9%)
Medical: $1.21M (1%)
Competition Guarantees: $1.41M (2%)
Recruiting: $1.41M (2%)
Game Expenses and Travel: $10.14M (11%)
Revenues:
VT 2017: $87.42M
ACC Median: $94.71M
Yep - we're not winning the ACC until we're in the top half of revenue.
We've won the ACC 4 times without being at the top in revenue.
Comparing seasons before the rise of internet recruiting services and the facilities and support staff arm race we have now is like comparing going to airport pre-9/11. It was different and better, but it will never be like that again.
We last won the ACC in 2010 not 1956. We played for it in 2016. Money is nice and probably helps, but the sky isn't falling.
Broken down to just football operating expense:
2017 VT $30,878,285
2017 ACC Median $24,722,254
VT football expenditures are up 25% since 2012
Coaching salaries:
2017 VT: $8,826,626
2017 ACC Median: $8,358,865
VT coach salaries are up 54% since 2012
The ghost of Jim Weaver is saying "see, I told you guys"
Because Clemson is always a favorable measuring stick...
The Tigers support 18 teams, 498 athletes and had a total revenue of $112.6MM.
The Hokies support 22 teams, 557 athletes and had a total revenue of $87.43MM.
Clemson doubles up Virginia Tech in donor contributions: $33.78MM vs $15.77MM.
I'm sure I'm in the minority on this, but I'm open to the argument of contracting the number of sports Tech supports in order to allocate more money to the football program.
I'm allllllll for this.
What sports would you cut? What athletes are you sending packing?
To make that call, I think you would 1st have to be able to see exactly how much Tech is spending on each sport. Off the cuff, I'd say swimming & diving, tennis, golf.....why?
I'd say keep the revenue sports and the ones with the greatest chance of success/championships, also factoring in the expense.
But I'd have no problem cutting a couple of non-revenue sports for more success in fewer sports.
It's the reality of college sports.
I really dont want any sports cut. Maybe someone said golf because Jay is retiring, but if you didnt know that cutting golf for a coach that has lead VT for 36 years is tough. He's a local boy from Narrows. And he has done really well for being in a place that rains so much. VTs football field used to be tested on the golf course. If you want to cut the programs least likely to win then sure swimming is there, it's tough in the ACC, and we dont have good facilities, however the upkeep of those facilities would still be dont for the student body. I would argue baseball is next. The ACC is too good at baseball and the upkeep of facilities is costly.
Personally, it's a sad day the day we cut sports for football, it's the day we really need to look at ourselves in the mirror and wonder about the direction if the university. It would be like cutting departments becuase they don't bring in money like engineering, or dont produce alumni that donate.
Without looking, can you name all the sports Virginia Tech sponsors with 100% accuracy? I know I can't.
I think the tradition argument can be a good one, but as an ardent supporter of VT sports, there are only a few I have a connection with. For others, I would be OK if they were club sports. I'm just advocating a pragmatic approach.
Yes I could, but it's only because I look at every sports schedule to see if any teams are playing out of state where we have lived.
This was a fun test. I ended up getting them all before I checked after about two minutes with volleyball being the last one I came up with.
Personally I think if the university is going to go in the direction of being a large enrollment research university similar to most B1G schools then I'd like the athletic department to match. The ACC is already the second largest league in the country by number of sports, and I'd like to participate in all of them eventually should we ever find the revenue for it. I'm obviously biased towards picking up a particular sport, but if we ever added fencing yours truly would be first in line to write some checks and make some noise at ACC champs every year.
These are great answers.
I just think it's worth having the debate. My priorities for financial support are the ones I watch, and am aware of.
You hit on a lot of my thoughts and articulated them quiet well. Thank you (and get out of my head)
No but that's cause I have 0 interest in baseball or soccer.
I think on this board you might be in majority but not me personally. I think supporting a broader range of sports is better overall. I also think supporting female sports is very important. I love that my kids can get female golfers, softball players and soccer players as role models at Tech.
And that removes our high road where we make fun of Clemson for not embracing all of college athletics.
Wait, is that actually a thing?
It was for me when I lived in SC.
I'm having a hard time imagining any situation where attempting to pump the number of non-revenue sports VT has over Clemson resulting in anything other than being laughed out of the room.
It's all about how you phrase it and the situation. You don't bring it up when they are talking about football.
Yep. Living in the shadow of Mt. Dabo, we take what we can get.
Thanks to Title IX, Football schools can never eliminate Women's sports because you have to have an equal number of men/women on scholarship. So with football as the elephant in the room with 85-0 men to women scholarships, and wrestling as the hippo (?) with 20-0, it forces us to have many women-only sports. This is why men's rugby and lacrosse are relegated to club status. So if we cut anything it would be men's soccer, golf, tennis, etc.
I think Title IX is a little more nuanced. It is my understanding that the $$s spent on women's sports must be in the same relation to men's sports as the ratio of women to men in the student body.
This means that the cost variability of an out-of-state vs in-state men's scholarship is doubled.
This is also why women's sports have more scholarships per sport.
I'm sure it's more nuanced than what I wrote, but it can't really have anything to do with the ration of men:women in the student body, or it would doubly penalize a technical school like us that has 4/3 ratio of men to women. Not sure about the out-of-state cost variability, but the women's sports have more scholarships per sport because we are trying to give scholarships to as many women as we can, vs the men's sports to make up for football.
If the student body is 70% male. Title IX spending is 70% on men's sports, no double penalty.
The out-of-state impacts the amount spent on men's sports that has to be in proportion to women's sports. You are correct that there is the $$s of 85 football scholarships to make up across the women's sports. The number of scholarships per sport is determined by the NCAA (some sports are not allowed partial scholarships per NCAA).
I'm sympathetic to athletes of non-revenue sports. I have friends who were athletes at both UMD and UMBC when programs were cut. It was pretty devastating for them. Most have been playing their sport competitively for at least 10 years, and spent the last 5 focused on getting a college scholarship. They go to a college, and 95% of the social life is build around their team and/or the athletics department as a whole. Yes, they typically have the option to either keep their current scholarship at their current school, or transfer elsewhere where they can play, but for the athletes half way through their collegiate careers, it's a lose/lose situation.
I'm not sure that eliminating sports is the way to go, but if we do, we should eliminate the sports where lolUVA almost always beats us. This will help ensure Commonwealth Clash victory for the good guys.
It would require a detailed plan, but what I presented is simply another way of looking at the equation. If you want to allocate more money per sport, there needs to be an increase in money, or (inclusive) decrease in sports.
I'm pretty sure that the money generated from the football program cannot be used anywhere else besides the football program. I could be wrong, but that is always what I heard when I was working in the Athletic Department.
This would surprise me a great deal since a lot of smaller programs bankroll their athletic department by getting smacked in out of conference road games in exchange for big paychecks.
This isnt true, the computer lookup system for the library was paid for by the athletic department (in the 90s). No University funds can be used for the athletic department, except for the sports fee, however the athletic department can spend on lots of things outside of the department or innerdepartment.
This is some fantastic data. Planning to do some numbers crunching with in next week. Some quick takeaways when comparing 7 ACC schools (NCst, GT, UNC, UVA, Clemson, UL, FSU, VT):
My take away from looking this over is: you want to compete at top levels you need more money. More money doesn't guarantee you will be good but you can't be too without it.
I was expecting this to be a database of what players are getting paid how much. That's the transparency we need in the sport, these days.
I suspect this information will be (mis-)used to support whatever narrative people already had bouncing around in their heads, and mostly as a rationale for why we can't do something.
Perhaps, but what's your point?
he's saying the numbers always work
Correct.
Also, there are lies, damned lies, and statistics, as well as the numbers aren't going to change anyone's minds, only support the conclusions everyone has already drawn.
Data Analysis is simply stating a Hypothesis and seeing if it's true based off the numbers.
From the stuff I have seen pulled out of this data, if you want to compete at the highest level in the ACC, you have to spend more money on your program and your program alone.
If you don't think that works, use the data to show me otherwise.